Why does the US not have free health care?

Question

There is free health care in other countries. For example Australia, France, Canada.

Answer 1

Because there are more important things for the tax payers to pay for such as funding wars, limos for the government to ride in, their hookers and dope. Why would us tax payers wanna pay for something that could help people that's just silly

Answer 2

There is no such thing as free healthcare.

Answer 3

Because the poor and stupid don't deserve to get free health care. If they are too lazy to work, let them suffer!!!!!

Answer 4

Good question, though far from new.  It is a well known fact that these other countries have universal health care.  We don't have such a thing because, for one we are a country that is leaning very heavily towards, if not in the state of, having a corporationalist government.  This means, that maybe we should have included separation of corporation and state in the Constitution, but we didn't.  Government plays the "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" game with the biggest of the monopolistic corporations in the United States for personal satisfaction.  

Also you have idiots like Jimmy J and others who have already answered your question with  lame renderings of the OBVIOUS.  Of course someone pays for it; everyone pays for it, equally.  Is that not better than a huge portion of people not having any insurance at all?  People who need it can't always afford it now can they?  People go bankrupt over hospital bills; something they cannot control.  Yea, so open your eyes a little wider than you vanity mirror and stop being an ***.  I hate greedy, ignorant, self-centered people like that who care only about what they loose, rather than what so many people, INCLUDING themselves gain.

If you can overcome ignorance, greed, (in Corporations, government, and several of your fellow Jesus-loving citizens) then we could establish a Government ran Universal Health Care.

Answer 5

most americans are too scared of socialism to ever let a good thing happen.

Answer 6

You are full of it.  There is no such thing as free health care.  Someone pays for it.  Only idiots and freeloaders think it is free.

Answer 7

Barticus it's not free in any of those countries. All the taxpayers are paying for it regardless of wether they feel it's right to pay for someone elses bills or not.

Why should I or even you for that matter have to pay out of your pocket for ANYONE elses health care bills ?  Whats next ? Will you pay for their food, clothes, housing, transportation, entertainment ?

Free healthcare is NEVER EVER free it comes at a great price.

Answer 8

"Free" as in Paid for by high tax rates to the citizens of those countries?

Sorry, I'll pay for my own.

Answer 9

Because there's no such thing. No country has free health care. Do you know any doctor that works for free or any pharmacy that gives away medication? No, because someone is always paying for it.

Answer 10

we are enterprise economy...if there is money to be made for someone then we will bill for it..

Answer 11

No one wants to pay for it.  The funds would have to come from the citizens, who are already being pressed financially.

Answer 12

You need to research before you post mate. There is no free healthcare in those places. They pay for it too. In the form of high taxes.

Many Americans dont want to pay for someone else to get health care while sitting at home and not working. Yes there are people who are out of work becuase of medical reasons but they are covered by medicare and get medical treatment as it is now. Why should hard working people pay for someone else to have something that they wont work for themself?

Plus Socialized Healthcare isnt all it is cracked up to be. I know I live in England and get to see it 1st hand. It is scary at times. Plus the taxes I pay to have it are almost crippling, Yet you see the guy who is a profesional at being on the dole getting the same healthcare as someone who works their butt off

Read the link below and see what you get with socialized healthcare and the reason they list it is like that. Underfunding and not enough healthcare workers cuasing the ones who work to be overstreatched

Answer 13

Its not FREE, in Canada the dirty little secret they keep from you is that when Canadians get their paychecks, about 48% of their money is 'GONE' Where did it go you ask, hummmm, it went to a govt bureaucracy that divvies up this huge re-distribution of wealth and pours it into a health care spending cycle that is comparable to the efficiency of the American DMV.  When your wife gets a lump on her breast she has to call and make an appt with the nearest DR. in her general "area".  Then about six weeks later she will be seen by a specialist that will tell her that is they had caught it in time she would have had a better chance then she does now.  

The rich in american will not stand for this kind of system, they will go to exclusive clinics possibly overseas and all of the best medical talent will go with them.  Just like all f the medical professionals did when castr took over Cuba.  I have a friend whose grandpa falls int that category

Answer 14

Nothing is free -they just pay by taxation rather than by choice.

Answer 15

It is not in the best financial interest of the AMA members. The American Medical Association is the richest and most powerful lobby in the US. Through the AMA lobbying and political  monetary contributions it is able to prevent Congress passing health care bills.

Answer 16

There is no such thing as free health care in any country. The reason most real Americans don't want it is because the minute the government begins to administrate something it just got way more expensive. Besides that do you really want to have to request your health care and wait for government approval? If the Canadians are so enamoured with their "free" health care why do so many come here and pay to get it? I wish you socialists would just go away. You're so tiresome. Always wanting a free lunch.

Answer 17

From Canada:  I disagree with those that say we pay for it in taxes.. If you consider the amount of money the USA pays for major surgery..heart attack..etc, I would much rather have it come in the form of taxes and walk out of the hospital without a bill that I might have to mortgage my house to pay for.

Nobody here has to suffer with an illness because they can't find the money to have it treated.

AND our health care is as good as the USA

Answer 18

there is no free health care any were!!!

Your raped by taxes and tariffs in those countries, private health care is cheaper thank you.

Answer 19

Most of us don't want it.  We want to chose our doctors as we please and make appointment with specialists without having to get a referral from a GP.  My insurance plan allows me to make appointment with specialists, it costs me $30 co-pay.  Not all plans allow that of course, with cheaper plans you need a re feral if you want your insurance to pay.

Answer 20

The right wingers have made a big deal out of the fact that health care is not free, but we understand that you meant free at delivery.  You have to be precose, or the Bush Leaguers will nit pick at you in an attempt to change the subject.

For the fool who said Canadians pay higher taxes, they do not.  Americans pay per capita as highly as Canadians, but the lobbyists for the HMOs and pharmacy companies have succeeded in painting any public health care as unpatriotic and socialism.

We are the only developed western democracy that cannot manage the thing.  Great Britain has had it since 1949, and thay are not socialists yet.  We don't have what they have because our democracy does not work as well as theirs.

Answer 21

From a historical view, the US has always valued individualism in our culture more then our European counterparts too, this has played into people's anti-government solution stance on things like this.

Answer 22

No country has FREE health care.

Doctors don't work for free.  

The Doctors in Austraila, France, Canada, England and Germany (who, by the way, don't work for free) COME HERE for their surgeries because their healthcare stinks.  Meanwhile, the residents of these countries are broke because their taxes are so high and sick because their healthcare stinks.

If you want "FREE" healthcare, move to one of these countries and die happy.  (Probably at a very early age of something treatable.)

Answer 23

Actually, we do have free health care.  

We have Medicare and Medicaid for those that qualify, and we have free healthcare "as available" for the military and retirees.  

We also have the very best health care in the world available free for any member of Congress, but that probably isn't what they have in mind for the rest of us to get for "free".

Answer 24

Free puppies!  Free Kittens!....sorry nothing that is worth anything is free!..

...Free means that if you are used to paying 25% of your taxes in you payroll deduction, you could be now paying 50%...  Now what part of FREE are you talking about?

Answer 25

Handouts stifle innovation. America is the richest country in the world because it is has the most innovation.

Answer 26

The word Free...if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Answer 27

None of the above are free.  Somebody must pay for the care.  Taxes ususally pay for it.  Or simply put, the healthy pay for the care of the ill.  the longer you live, the more illness you pay for.  what's the incentive for a healthy individual with  meaningful paycheck to provide for others.  This is simply redistibution of wealth.

Answer 28

It's not free. Somehow it has to be paid for.

Besides it is all about PROFIT.

There is no profit in universal health care.

PROFIT. Nothing else matters.

Answer 29

nothing free about it paid for by taxes,the US taxation rate one of the lowest in the world many want to keep it that way/ from Ontario-Canada

Answer 30

Because we spend more on our military than all other nations COMBINED.

(Not to mention the additional $500,000 per MINUTE headed to Iraq.)

Answer 31

Those same three countries have citizens flocking to our nation for the BEST healthcare.  Think about it...how much of what you receive for free in life is worth a d**n?  If the government demanded cars to be free, they would all suck.  Besides, the "freeness" you speak of does not exist.  It comes out of your paycheck. It comes out of mine.  It is the most naked form of socialism in the world.